Mechanical characterization of 3C-SiC grown on Si micromachined cantilever

Resonating microcantilever (MCs) are extremely sensitive mass detectors that have been successfully proposed as chemical, biological and environmental sensors [1]. However, recent works have demonstrated that variation of flexural rigidity due to localization of molecule absorption can induce a positive frequency shift larger than the negative one due to the added mass effect [2]. Goal of our research is to grown and pattern thin 3C-SiC films on Si MC to obtain a huge local increment of beam stiffness, exploiting the outstanding mechanical properties of such material (in particular, its large Young modulus)